A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
"A Suitable Boy" is a sweeping novel by Vikram Seth that intricately weaves the lives of four families in post-independence India, spanning a massive 1,474 pages. Central to the story is the widowed Mrs. Rupa Mehra, who is determined to find a suitable husband for her daughter, Lata. The narrative unfolds through the relationships and dynamics of the Mehra family, alongside the Kapoors, the Khans, and the Chatterjis, each representing diverse social and cultural backgrounds. Key figures include the ambitious Haresh Khanna, who, despite his modest origins and the challenges posed by class differences, courts Lata while competing with her affection for Kabir Durrani, a Muslim youth whose religion complicates their potential union. The novel explores themes of love, societal expectations, and family obligations against the backdrop of a changing India. Ultimately, Lata's journey leads her to follow her mother’s wishes, culminating in her marriage to Haresh Khanna, which reflects the age-old conflict between personal desire and familial duty. "A Suitable Boy" is both a rich character study and a commentary on the complexities of Indian society during a transformative era.
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of World Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1993
Type of work: Novel
The Work
A Suitable Boy is a tale of four families told in 1,474 pages. The widowed Mrs. Rupa Mehra has two sons, Arun, who is married to Meenakshi, a daughter of the prominent Chatterjis of Calcutta, and Varun, a race track habitué much picked on by the older Arun. She also has two daughters, Savita, married to Pran Kapoor, and the bright, attractive Lata, whose need for a proper husband preoccupies Mrs. Mehra.
The Kapoors also live in Brahmpur, where Mr. Mahesh Kapoor is minister of revenue for Purva Pradesh. The Kapoors have a daughter, Veena, whose husband, Kedernath Tandon, works in the shoe trade. Veena and Kedernath’s nine-year-old son, Bhaskar, is a mathematical genius, who shares the same name as a famous Indian mathematician. (In a similar bit of onomastic play, Mr. Kapoor’s secretary, Abdul Salaam, shares, with an extra vowel, the name of the Pakistani winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1979, Abdul Salam.) Pran Kapoor teaches English at the university in Calcutta, while his easygoing younger brother, Maan, indulges himself with courtesans, drink, and gambling.
The other two families are the Muslim Khans of Brahmpur and the Hindu Chatterjis of Calcutta. The Begum Abida Khan lives alone, her husband having abandoned her to live in Pakistan. Her husband’s brother, the widower Nawab Sahib of Baitar, oversees the Khans’ affairs, which consist mainly of the doings of his married daughter, Zainab, and his two sons, Imtiaz and Firoz. The latter’s close friendship with Maan Kapoor results in near-tragedy. The Chatterjis belong to the Calcutta elite. Mr. Justice Chatterji sits on the Calcutta High Court, studies Sanskrit classics, and with his wife entertains lavishly. His pretentious son-in-law, Arun Kapoor, is being cuckolded by his wife, Meenakshi, the Chatterjis’ daughter, with Arun’s best friend. Meenakshi and her lively younger sister, Kakoli, offend Mrs. Rupa Mehra with their sophistication. The oldest Chatterji son, Amit, studied at Oxford and writes poetry; the middle son, Dipankar, alternates between the mystical and the practical; and the youngest son, Tapan, lurks in the background of the family drama.
A major character outside of these family groups is the enterprising Haresh Khanna, whose social background is far below that of the Chatterjis, the Khans, and the Kapoors, although he suits Mrs. Rupa Mehra just right. He studied at Midlands College of Technology and has mastered the shoemaking business from top to bottom. His accent, his manners, his tastes, and his dress betray his modest origins, but his industry, his confidence in himself, and his work habits guarantee success with the Czech firm that he brazens his way into. (One of the great pleasures of the novel is the detailed account of the shoemaking business, in which Seth’s father also was employed.) Haresh had a serious love interest, but the girl’s Sikh religion doomed their relationship.
Encouraged all the way by Mrs. Rupa Mehra, Haresh conducts a serious campaign to win Lata Mehra, who besides having become the rather languid romantic focus of Amit Chatterji has long desired a handsome and talented fellow Muslim student, Kabir Durrani. Kabir’s father, Dr. Durrani, is a brilliant but somewhat vague mathematician whose friendship with the precocious Bhaskar constitutes one of the many small delights of Seth’s intricate narrative. Kabir is a fine youth and returns Lata’s love, but his religion makes their union impossible, and eventually Lata follows her mother’s wishes and marries the suitable boy, Haresh Khanna. A Suitable Boy thus becomes in many ways an old-fashioned novel with a happy ending.
Sources for Further Study
The Atlantic. CCLXXI, June, 1993, p.134.
Commonweal. CXX, May 21, 1993, p.25.
Far Eastern Economic Review. CLVI, May 13, 1993, p.50.
London Review of Books. XV, April 22, 1993, p.9.
Los Angeles Times Book Review. May 23, 1993, p.4.
The New Republic. CCVIII, June 14, 1993, p.41.
New Statesman and Society. VI, March 19, 1993, p.40.
The New York Review of Books. XLI, May 27, 1993, p.22.
The New York Times Book Review. XCVIII, May 9, 1993, p.3.
Newsweek. CXXI, May 24, 1993, p.62.
Publishers Weekly. CCXL, May 10, 1993, p.46.